With the rapid development of Internet services and the continuous increasing of the number of Internet users, network traffic keeps rising continuously, and application and deployment of IT devices such as servers become more and more important. A server provides various services such as web access, file download, stream media for Internet users, and also provides a graphical user interface, a keyboard interface, and a mouse interface, which is convenient for network maintenance personnel to configure and maintain the device. Generally, human machine interfaces such as a keyboard, a video, and a mouse of the server are collectively called KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse, keyboard, video, mouse). Because the number of servers is large, it is impossible to connect the KVM to each server one by one during maintenance. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 1, a previous method is to connect one KVM to an external KVM switch device which is connected to multiple servers. Through this method, although remote management of the server is implemented, each server needs to provide cables of a keyboard, a mouse, and a video, which causes problems of increased costs and messy wiring. Moreover, because an analog switch manner is adopted, the cables of the keyboard, mouse, and video cannot be too long, and are generally tens of meters; otherwise, signal quality is affected, so only a local server can be managed, and a regional limit exists.
In order to solve the problems of messy wiring and regional limit, a KVM over IP (KVM over IP) technology is currently used. Through the technology, KVM data is converted into an IP packet, and transmitted through a network, thus effectively solving the foregoing problems. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, each server provides a KVM over IP module. The KVM over IP module may convert video output of a video card into an Ethernet packet and send the Ethernet packet to a console, or restore packaged keyboard and mouse information on a console into original data. The Ethernet packet including the KVM data may be transmitted in a network cable, so the number of transmission cables is reduced, thus solving the problem of messy wiring. Moreover, the server and a switch are connected through the network, and the switch and the console are also connected through the network, so the console and the server may be separated in different cities, thus solving the problem of regional limit.
ATCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture, advanced telecom computing architecture) is a telecommunication level platform based on the PICMG standard, which takes requirements for performance and reliability in the telecommunication field into consideration. The ATCA architecture provides an independent management channel and a service channel. The management channel includes an IPMB (Intelligent Platform Management Bus, intelligent platform management bus) channel based on an IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface, intelligent platform management interface) protocol and a BASE channel (management channel) based on an IP protocol. The service channel is a FABRIC channel (service channel) based on optional various protocols. As shown in FIG. 3, these channels have a dual-star structure. Each service board provides two IPMB interfaces, two BASE interfaces, and two FABRIC interfaces. The two IPMB interfaces are connected to two management boards. The two BASE interfaces and two FABRIC interfaces are connected to two switch boards.
An IPMB channel is used to transmit KVM information, specifically as shown in FIG. 4. A south bridge of a service board provides a PCI bus, which is connected to a display chip with a PCI interface. Video information output from the display chip is sent to an FPGA through a DVI interface. The FPGA compresses video data and sends the compressed video data to a BMC through an LPC interface. The BMC is a processor which is with low performance and dedicated to management. The BMC directly interfaces with an IPMB channel on a backplane, and may convert the compressed video data into an IMPI packet and send the IPMI packet to a management board. The management board converts the IPMI packet into an IP packet, and sends the IP packet to a switch board through a network port of a BASE channel. The switch board sends the IP packet to a remote console through a network port of its panel. Data amount of video information is large. For example, the data amount is 1.4 Gbps in the case of a resolution of 1024*768, a refresh rate of 75 Hz, and 24-bit true color. However, a maximum bandwidth of the IPMB channel is 400 Kbps, and when two IPMB channels are used simultaneously, only an 800 Kbps bandwidth is reached, which is far less than 1.4 Gbps. Therefore, the video data must be compressed substantially to satisfy the bandwidth requirement. However, the quality and refresh rate of a substantially-compressed video image must be affected greatly, thus causing the problem of image distortion. The BMC is further connected to the south bridge through two USB interfaces, and may simulate operations of a keyboard and a mouse. Due to the problem of the very low IPMB bandwidth, the compressed video data may be transmitted with difficulty, and the too large data amount causes a long delay of operating the keyboard and mouse by a user, and normal IPMI communication is affected.
In another implementation, four reserved pins on a Zone1 connector of an ATCA service board are customized as an FE channel (two for sending signals, and two for receiving signals). KVM data is transmitted through the FE channel. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 5, each service board has a KVM over IP module, which may convert the KVM data into an IP packet and transfer the IP packet to a management board through the FE channel. The ATCA specification does not limit an implementation manner (for example, signal definition, connector selection, or a slot location of a backplane interface) of the management board, so a switch chip may be provided on the management board to aggregate KVM over IP packets from all service boards, and then send the KVM over IP packets to a remote console through another network port of a panel. In this solution, the definition of the backplane interface is modified, and an original backplane and management board must be changed to be used with the service board, so compatibility is poor.
When the KVM information is transmitted through the IPMB channel, although the problem of poor compatibility does not exist, due to insufficient bandwidth of the data transmission channel, the problems of image distortion and delays of mouse and keyboard operations occur. When the KVM information is transmitted through the customized FE channel, although the bandwidth of the data transmission channel is not limited, because the FE channel is the channel customized through the four reserved pins on the Zone1 connector of the service board, it is required that the board and the backplane are customized, the compatibility is poor.